We ventured down to Utrecht the other night to see kd lang at the Vredenburg. Hooking up with BBC-Star-Kathy-Clugston for dinner at Goos we then met the-very-late-Steve-and-Fintan at the venue. The concert was the first of kd’s European tour and she was in fine form, ‘consumate performer’ was the over-used-cliche that kept springing to mind. Besides a voice that could peel-your-socks-off, she also managed to be witty, smart, dignified, barefoot and obviously having fun. This despite a rather-too-enthusiastic-Canadian in the audience and someone else piping up with the considerate question ‘Are you pregnant?’ (Maybe it was the barefeet?). It will take a European tour to excise the memory of Utrecht from her mind!
The show was a good mix of torchy covers at which she just excels and a few of her own numbers including some from her current album. For me the highlight was the Patsy Cline number Three Cigarettes In An Ashtray. Having a secret-Patsy-Cline stash back in Australia I may have been slightly biased towards this number anyway but if you’d heard her sing it I’m guessing you’d have felt the same.
***To give you an idea of how good this concert was I’ll just say this. Utrecht is only 32kms from Amsterdam but the trip from Amsterdam to Utrecht, with a 8km detour to Ijsselstein to drop Jacob off at his grandparents, took 3 hours. Because of traffic jams. At 3.00 in the afternoon. Returning to Amsterdam at 11.00pm we then ran into another one on the freeway. This is why we NEVER leave Amsterdam.
But it WAS worth it!.
postcards from the north 